Pete Wentz Trivia: 33 fascinating facts about the singer!

1. Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III was born June 5, 1979 in Wilmette, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago.

2. He is the son of Dale (née Lewis), a high school admissions counselor, and Pete Wentz II, an attorney.

3. He is of English and German descent on his father’s side and Afro-Jamaican on his mother’s side.

4. He has a younger sister, Hillary, and a younger brother, Andrew. His black maternal grandfather, Arthur Winston Lewis, served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone; Arthur Winston Lewis’ cousin is General Colin Powell.

5. Wentz’ parents met while campaigning for former Vice President Joe Biden’s senatorial run in the 1970s.

6. Wentz recalled in a Rolling Stone interview that his earliest musical memory was listening to The Foundations’ song “Build Me Up Buttercup” in the back of his father’s car.

7. Wentz attended New Trier High School and North Shore Country Day School, where he was an all-state soccer player.

8. He considered pursuing a professional career in the sport, but decided that music was a more fulfilling choice; he says that he “always had a magical connection to the ball.

9. But it didn’t feel like an adventure. Music was more of a challenge and, in the end, felt more interesting.”

10. During his first year of high school, he began skipping school regularly and smoking marijuana with friends, but later quit as it was affecting his grades at school.

11. After graduating from high school in 1997, he got a job at a Subway restaurant in the Chicago Loop and attended DePaul University where he studied political science, dropping out one quarter shy of graduation to focus on his job at Subway, as in December 1998, he was promoted to manager of the Subway and got a salary increase.

12. He later quit his job at Subway to go play bass guitar full-time with Fall Out Boy in 2003.

13. During Fall Out Boy’s hiatus in 2009–12, Wentz formed the experimental, electropop and dubstep group Black Cards.

14. He owns a record label, DCD2 Records, which has signed bands including Panic! at the Disco and Gym Class Heroes.

15. Fall Out Boy returned in February 2013.

16. Wentz has also ventured into other non-musical projects, including writing, acting, and fashion; in 2005 he founded a clothing company called Clandestine Industries.

17. He also hosts the TV show Best Ink and runs a film production company called Bartskull Films, as well as a bar called Angels & Kings.

18. His philanthropic activities include collaborations with Invisible Children, Inc. and UNICEF’s Tap Project, a fundraising project that helps bring clean drinking water to people worldwide.

19. People magazine states that “no bassist has upstaged a frontman as well as Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.”

20. Wentz has bipolar disorder, and has taken medication for it since he was eighteen.

21. In February 2005, Wentz attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the anxiety medication Ativan, and as a result, spent a week in the hospital. Commenting on the event to a magazine, he said:

“ I was isolating myself further and further, and the more I isolated myself, the more isolated I’d feel. I wasn’t sleeping. I just wanted my head to shut off, like, I just wanted to completely stop thinking about anything at all. ”

22. The suicide attempt was put into song form, “7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)” and released on their album, From Under The Cork Tree.

23. After this event, Wentz moved back in with his parents.

24. Wentz later spoke of his suicide attempt to the support site Halfofus.com and cites Jeff Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah” as a song that saved his life.

25. In 2006, Wentz started dating singer Ashlee Simpson.

26. In April 2008, Simpson and Wentz confirmed their engagement, and were married on May 17, 2008, at Simpson’s parents’ residence in Encino, California, with her father officiating the ceremony.

27. Two weeks later, she confirmed her pregnancy.

28. Her surname changed from Simpson to Wentz and she was briefly known professionally as Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

29. Simpson gave birth to their son on November 20, 2008.

30. On February 8, 2011, Simpson filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences”. She asked for joint custody and primary physical custody of their son with visitation for Wentz, along with spousal support.

31. However, a later report said that Simpson believed the couple simply “married too young”, with the source stating that, “It was honestly a classic case of marrying young, having a kid young and growing apart over the years”.

32. Wentz reportedly did not want the divorce. Their divorce was finalized on November 22, 2011.

33. On February 17, 2014, Wentz and his current girlfriend Meagan Camper announced that the couple were expecting their first child together and Wentz’s second. Their son was born on August 21, 2014.